The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
